The Sword of Bothh

The Stormcaller Empire

The Stormcaller Empire

History

Long ago, the lands now known as Drobaan were rich with civilization. In these long-forgotten times, the sun-baked savannah was divided into two countries. The lands which lay west of The Riverbed were home to a race of men known as The Stormcallers, who devoted their lives in search of the legendary Behemoths of old, massive creatures said to be harbingers of destruction. To the east of The Riverbed dwelt the Orcs, who ran in haphazard clans atop mighty Dire Boars across the Red Plains of Drobaan. For centuries, the two countries existed alongside one-another, occasionally warring in great battles, never one triumphing over the other. Both nations were cunning, fierce warriors, brutal and proud to the last drop of blood in their veins. The harsh savannah is a dangerous place for those unable to withstand the heat of the summer winds, or the lightning storms of the rainy season. The people who choose to live their lives amid such diversity thus must be hardier than the plains themselves, standing boldly against nature as paragons of endurance and might.
The Stormcallers believed themselves to be descended from the ancient Storm Giants, and thus felt superior to all others living across Telledor. In their vanity, the humans of this ancient people chased thunderheads across the seas from their long-forgotten island homes, ever wishing to gain the favour of the Behemoths they believed dwelt inside. Hoping to harness the power of these beasts, the search of The Stormcallers finally landed them upon the shores of Telledor, in The Bay Of Blood. The Stormcallers wasted no time in constructing a port for their vessels, which soon grew into the ancient city of Arsius. As the storms drifted and settled further into the plains over the following years, the Stormcallers gradually expanded their empire. Soon The Stormlands were dominated by these people until their kingdom spanned from Cliffden in The Thunderhead Mountains all the way east to Arsius along The Bay of Blood. In the centre of this realm lay the great city Kavorall, a proud, prosperous place where The Stormcallers built an army to fend off the Orcish hordes and protect all they had built. Kavorall became a hub of trade for The Stormcallers, and the city was a sprawling place, filled with fine stone towers and marketplaces strewn with mufti-coloured awnings.
The men and women of Cliffden lived a life of self-imposed servitude to the Behemoths, whom they so wished to call to their aid. They stood on mountain peaks, pledging life, land and fealty to these masters of wind, rain and storm, awaiting their moment of acceptance by these demigods of power. Ever attempting to please these masters, The Stormcallers soon decided to prove their worth by amassing their armies against the Orcs, hoping to defeat them in one last brutal struggle for dominance over the plains. However, the Orcs of the Red Plains would not be shaken from their lands. For the Orcs of Drobaan followed a deity of their own, a demon god called Krotusk, who led them into battle with a fury no mortal could share. The Orcs amassed against the humans, and came out the victors after centuries of war. Though they fought valiantly, in the end the humans were no match for such reckless hate, and their empire was crushed beneath the hoof of The Boar Clans.
But the Orcs did not stop with the defeat of their aggressors. After obliterating the forces of The Stormcallers, the Orcs were said to have hunted these men down, slaughtering every man, woman and child who dared fall into the path of their rage-fuelled lust for carnage. The pure thrill of destruction led the Orcs to the extermination of The Stormcallers, down to the last infant. The bodies of the dead baked against the summer sun, rotting the once-great empire down to the bone, crows and vultures feeding upon all that was left of the kingdom they had wrought. But the Orcs left the ruins of the cities of The Stormcallers, riding out into the plains, taking only what they could carry on the backs of the Dire Boars on which they rode. The hate and rage with which the humans had been killed manifested in the bones which lay in the halls of those that were dead.
It was not long before the bodies of the dead rose again, hungry for revenge, soundless screams echoing bleakly through the mountainsides. The undead continue to roam the Thunderhead mountains, trapped between this life and the next, their desiccated bodies yearning for the respect the dead deserve. The Orcs are naturally fearful of the supernatural, and upon learning that the Stormcallers had returned from their graves struck fear into their otherwise fearless hearts. Ever since, the Orcs have avoided the Stormlands at all costs, preferring to roam the plains they have called home for centuries. As irony would have it, the humans that the Orcs sought so violently to extricate from their homeland will likely never fully leave, their souls forced to remain in the husks of their former selves for all eternity.